Archive for the 'Supreme Court' Category

Starting this week, I’ll be posting my updated charts on SCOTUSblog. You can find the first SB version of my charts here. More specifically: Case ListCondensed Case List (formerly the Term Index)Vote BreakdownVote Breakdown Data

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The Supreme Court released three new opinions today and dismissed one hotly-anticipated case as improvidently granted. Graham v. Florida- Held: The [Cruel and Unusual Punishment] Clause does not permit a juvenile offender to be sentenced to life in prison without parole for a nonhomicide crime. Abbott v. Abbott- Held: A parent has a right of [...]

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There are two Green Bag Bobblehead dolls on eBay right now – Justice Scalia and Justice O’Connor – available from a Chicago, IL seller named “eileenwepstein2010“. Is it her? Hard to say… [Update: No, not hard to say. It's actually Richard Epstein's wife. Whoops?]

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I’m sad to see Justice Stevens leave the Court for a variety of reasons that have been well documented by people smarter than me. I’m also excited to some change on the Court because the liberal wing needs a change of pace after it’s dismal performance thus far in OT09. The biggest problem, at least [...]

After the Court released its opinion in Perdue v. Kenny A. yesterday, there was only one case left from the October sitting: Salazar v. Buono. The only justice who hasn’t written a majority opinion from October is Justice Kennedy. Barring an incredibly surprising turn of events, Justice Kennedy will be writing the majority opinion in [...]

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SCOTUSblog has a link to a chart released by C-SPAN that shows a history of all of their requests for same-day oral argument audio recordings. The first time audio recordings were released on an expedited schedule was for Bush v. Gore in 2000. I’ve been looking at the data with an eye towards gleaning a [...]

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A lot of people have been asking me over the last few days whether or not I think President Obama will go for a bold nominee or select a safe person who can be easily confirmed. Frankly, I’m not sure but if I had to bet my house it would be on Elena Kagan. If [...]

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In Scott v. Harris, the Court held 8-1 that when a car chase poses a “substantial and immediate risk” of injury to others, a police officer was acting reasonably when he terminated the chase by bumping the driver off the road. Justice Stevens didn’t agree with the Court and included this juicy bit in his [...]